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Kampala
City Council passed an important reform
Update
on Urban Harvest SSA activities: note from the
Regional Coordinator - Diana Lee-Smith,
January
2004
A
milestone was reached for UA practitioners in
Kampala this new year as the Kampala City Council
passed an important reform on superfluous and
restrictive regulations on agriculture and food
trading and distribution - a result of an
enriching participatory process involving urban
farmers from the different areas of the city,
officials, NGO's, and research institutes .
The new Ordinances -- which include one titled the
Kampala City Urban Agriculture Ordinance -- provide
for the city to document all commercial urban crop
and livestock activities. Being on the list will
constitute a temporary permit. The same applies to
other activities of fish, meat and dairy marketing,
where "artesanal" activities can get
temporary permits under the UA Ordinance, while
tighter restrictions will apply to
"industrial" type activities. The permit
is vital as it legitimizes UA activities and
prevents the harassment of farmers (several of whom
are women) by unethical officials and land
developers.
Guidelines and public information in local
languages on the detailed provisions of the
ordinances will be disseminated, to create awareness
among the UA small farmers and traders on the
improved security in their livelihood activities. It
is planned that the new set of regulations will be
enacted into law following a review by federal
authorities. The participatory process between
diverse stakeholders that led to the new reform in
UA regulations will be documented in a video that
will be used in the IDRC-funded Regional Training
Course on Urban Agriculture coming March. This
activity has mostly been funded by DFID's Livestock
Production Programme, which takes a strong interest
in poor urban farmers.
With
the same donor support, work is continuing on
networking in the East African sub-region on urban
agriculture and livestock keeping, with an emphasis
on low-income community involvement. Several urban
agriculture and livestock forums have been held
involving farmers, private sector service providers
and public sector stakeholders. In January this
year, the community (or farmers) sector met and
formed the Nairobi Network of Farmers and
Livestock-keepers. About forty farmers attended,
representing several different groups, some with
about a hundred members, from different parts of the
city. There is a plan for several more inter-sectoral
meetings in Nairobi in 2004, as well as similar
meetings in Kisumu in Kenya. The urban farmers
network has a plan of work for the year, involving
meeting with City Council and others on issues the
farmers have identified and want to get a response
on.
Preparations
for the Regional Course on Urban Agriculture
continue. After City Teams from Ghana (Accra and
Kumasi), Kenya (Nairobi and Kisumu), Uganda
(Kampala), Cameroun (Bamenda) and South Africa (Msunduzi/Pietmartizburg)
were selected at the November meeting of the
International Committee, two further meetings have
been organized in January. These are for the teams
preparing learning modules on UA Crop Systems
(Nairobi 16-17 January) and Waste Water re-Use in UA
(Accra 26-28 January). Regional expertise is drawn
from the respective sub-regions.
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